Another website asked, “Should We Unhitch The Ten Commandments?” I like to read those who disagree with some of my own Christian beliefs and allow myself to be challenged by their observations, but I also get encouragement from those with whom I have ‘things in common’, in fact, a lot of things in common, and two of those are addressed in the above responses of ‘The relevance of the Old Testament’, without which the New Testament would not make sense, and the Perpetuity of the Law of God.

I have addressed these subjects elsewhere but I am currently reading again through some sermons from vol. 28 of Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, by that preacher of preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon (published by the Banner of Truth Trust). I have several of these volumes and the price of them might give my age away when I say each volume is priced £1.50! But keeping to the subject I see there are two sermons in this volume on the Law of God, with his endorsement of the importance of the Old Testament for the Christian. The first is his exposition of Matthew 5:18 titled, “The Perpetuity of the Law of God”, where Spurgeon writes, “The relationship of the law to myself, and how it condemns me: the relationship of the gospel to myself, and how if I be a believer it justifies me – these are two point which every Christian man should clearly understand.” The second is an exposition of Jeremiah 31:33, titled, “The Law Written on the Heart.” There, Spurgeon says, “In our text we observe the excellency and dignity of the law of God. The Gospel has not come into the world to set aside the law. Salvation by grace does not erase a single precept of the law, nor lower the standard of justice in the smallest degree; on the contrary, as Paul says, we do not make void the law through faith, but we establish the law.” “God demands obedience under the law: God works obedience under the gospel.”

“At the height of his fame Spurgeon is said to have drawn crowds of up to 20,000 when he was 22 years of age. . . . In his day Spurgeon was an inspiration to many of his colleagues in the ministry and through his writings he continues to challenge and stimulate.”